The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology. Note, nothing described or referenced in this document is admitted as prior art to this application unless explicitly so stated.
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is used to manage assignment of network parameters in a network. For example, a DHCP-enabled device will send a broadcast query requesting network configuration information for the device from a DHCP server, which the server provides to the device.